which was now condemned because it led up and down the worst hills
and rocky slopes instead of having the sense to go round them. The
part that remained was so steep that no one in driving made use of
it any more though foot-farers climbed it occasionally, as it was a
good short cut.

The road ran as broad as any of the regular crown highways, and was
still covered with fine yellow gravel. In fact, it was smoother now
than formerly, being free from wheel tracks, and mud, and dust.
Along the edge bloomed roadside flowers and shrubs; dogwood,
bittervetch, and buttercups grew there in profusion even to this
day, but the ditches were filled in and a whole row of spruce trees
had sprung up in them. Young evergreens of uniform height, with
branches from the root up, stood pressing against each other as
closely as the foliage of a boxwood hedge; their needles were not
dry and hard, but moist and soft, and their tips were all bright
with fresh green shoots. The trees sang and played like humming
bees on a fine summer day, when the sun beams down upon them from a
clear sky.

When Jan of Ruffluck walked home from church the Sunday he had
appeared there for the first time in his royal regalia, he turned
in on the old forest road. It was a warm sunny day and, as he went
up the hill, he heard the music of the spruces so plainly that it
astonished him.

Never had spruce trees sung like that! It struck him that he ought
to find out why they were so loud-voiced just to-day. And being in
no special haste to reach home, he dropped down in the middle of
the smooth gravel road, in the shade of the singing tree. Laying